


Of all the things I could have been (I was you)

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Illusions, Twelfth Doctor Era, twelve rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:33:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: “Just how many monsters have you seen? I am certain I am not the first one.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dark twelve with a side of horrified eleven? Coming right up! Twelve deserves a rewrite, and though a much better one than this, for now this will have to do. I own nothing, please enjoy and go follow me on tumblr as rhymesofblue if you want to chat about ideas.

Doctor Who, any doctor/any companion, "Just how many monsters have you seen?"

.

“No.” The doctor says, disbelief clouding his voice and his knees threaten to give way beneath him. All of the noise around him is drowned out by the blood, pumped by his two hearts, roaring in his ears.

“No,” he repeats, all wrecked voice and disbelieving wide eyes, “no, it can’t be.” He stares ahead, too close to opening his mouth and laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 

“Doctor!” shouts Clara, grabbing onto the man’s sleeve and pulling in an effort to capture the man’s attention. “Doctor you have to listen to me, it’s not real! Whatever you are seeing, it isn’t real!” 

He should know this isn’t real, he really should, his brain screams it but his two hearts fail to receive the message and instead continue to beat erratically and painfully against his chest. He should know as it was him who brought Clara to this planet because illusions are fun and interesting, and completely fictional; he should know, should believe wholeheartedly that it’s all a high class ruse and none of it is real, but – and there is always a but. A small area of doubt that can easily overpower common sense with the right opportunity in the right situation, and this seems to be it ¬– what if it is?

Plausibility, after all, has always been one of the Doctor’s greatest adversaries.

Clara is still speaking, shouting and pulling, when her voice drifts away, like the sounds of car engines roaring past on a high way. The Doctor doesn’t respond, too enveloped by the man before him –the possibilities he represents and what he wonder he will have to say of them – to acknowledge the pulling at his sleeve or gather anything further from the words in his ear.

And suddenly he is nowhere, only surrounded by empty space, darkness, and shadows when the man across from him finally speaks.

“Oh my dearest Doctor you do look so frightfully scared!” croons the man shroud in darkness across from him, “Surely I cannot be the only one to witness such a face.”

The man takes a moment to tut and clicks his tongue, allowing his feigned expression of surprise to melt away and morph into momentary curiosity buried deep within his eyes and soon be overshadowed by malice, “Just how many monsters have you seen? I am certain I am not the first one.”

“You’re dead.” The Doctor says but the words come out quiet, barely passing through his numb lips and coming off as more of an automatic reply than a thought out response; it takes him a millisecond too long to register the words as his own. He feels a numbness that often accompanies shock as stands, but his limbs also tingle with a sort of nervous excitement and dread that he cannot shake. His lips are still numb when he speaks but this time he is at least louder, “You aren’t real. You aren’t even alive yet but I know you should be dead.”

Possibility, a voice whispers and reminds, locked away and muddled, too familiar to be forgotten but not remarkable enough to be remembered, he stands as a possibility.

The other man’s smirk is all wickedness and barbed wires, carved out memories in the making and decisions yet to be discovered.

“Ah, but isn’t that the wonderful thing about monsters?” smirks Twelve and something inside of the Doctor shatters. He air in his lungs leaves him for a moment and it takes him longer than usual to gather it back. 

It breaks him that this is what he becomes, that the man before him with empty eyes and carnivorous smile is what he will one day be.  
He stares into the face of his future self and the Doctor sees just how he was ever depicted as the destroyer of worlds.

(There’s so much anger, so much pain and suffering and untamed madness cycling through his blood.

Why, he wonders too horrified to muster anything other than silent sorrow, did no one ever stop me?

You were too fast, the voice within him answers once more, a luxurious sigh, as it is giddy in his grief and excited by his agony, always too fast for the rest, but you’ve always been fantastic at running) 

What feels like ice slides down the Doctor’s back as he stares at the man he will be: his future, his downfall, himself, and fear resonates in elevens core as twelve finishes speaking.

“They don’t have to be real.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, comments and Kudos are greatly appreciated and I'm on tumblr at rhymesofblue :)! Thank you for reading:)!


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